INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE & GOVERNANCE RECOVERY

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Many thanks to all the people who've supported us in 2007-2008! We value all yourhard work, prayers, tears, sweat, and commitment to the border indigenous peoples' struggles against U.S. policies of violence.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Pérez: There's still time for Valley residents to testify against border wall

By Steve Taylor[RioRio Grande Valley landowner Betty Perez (center) testified against the border wall at a congressional field hearing in Brownsville on April 28. (Photo: RGG/Steve Taylor)

BROWNSVILLE, May 3 - A rancher and farm owner who testified against the border wall at last Monday’s congressional hearing in Brownsville says there is still time for other Rio Grande Valley residents to have their say.

“Written testimonies can now be submitted in association with this hearing and added to the Congressional record,” said Betty Pérez. “This is one of the best opportunities we have had for our voices to be heard.”

Pérez said comments need to be mailed in by May 16 and sent to:

Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and OceansSubcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands1324 Longworth House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515

Pérez said any comments submitted do not have to be in response to the testimony given at the Monday’s hearing at the University of Texas at Brownsville. “They can address the many negative impacts that the wall will have,” she said.

Pérez is an active member of the No Border Wall coalition and a former director of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor. She and her family own ranchland north of La Joya, on the northwest edge of Hidalgo County. The ranch was bought in the 1930’s by Pérez’s maternal grandfather. However, she can trace her roots in the Valley back to Mexico and to the Texas land grants of the 1700s on both her maternal and paternal sides.

Pérez was a panelist at the hearing held jointly at by the House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee and the Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee. Both are subcommittees of the Natural Resources Committee. The hearing, titled “Walls and Waivers: Expedited Construction of the Southern Border Wall and the Collateral Impacts on Communities and the Environment.”

In her testimony, Pérez pointed out that a previous opportunity for Valley residents to have their say about the border wall was snuffed out by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Late last year, thousands of Valley residents wrote or gave oral comments as part of the federal government’s draft Environmental Impact Statement. However, the EIS process was eliminated last month when Chertoff announced he was waiving more than 30 federal laws and regulations in an effort to speed up construction of 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by year’s end.

The Department of Homeland Security has yet to make the comments submitted as part of the draft EIS process available to the public.

“This is an important opportunity to inform members of Congress, and to ensure that our voices become part of the official record,” Pérez told the Guardian.

“Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff has announced that since he waived the National Environmental Policy Act there will be no Final Environmental Assessments or Environmental Impact Statements, and it is unclear what will happen to the hundreds of public comments that they received at the open houses they held in McAllen, Brownsville and other cities along the border.”

In her testimony to the House panel, Pérez said DHS has failed to enter into meaningful dialogue with Valley residents about the border wall plan.

“Secretary Michael Chertoff and the DHS are either out of touch or misleading the nation in saying that residents along the border have had this opportunity to be heard many times before,” Pérez said, in her testimony.

“The handful of open house meeting they held, left people frustrated and angry that their questions were not answered and that their opinions could only be written or given to a stenographer. These meetings were not opportunities for public input or dialogue; they were rigid forums where DHS did not listen or respond to legitimate concerns.”

Pérez said Chertoff abused the REAL-ID Act in order to issue his waivers and bypass the National Environmental Policy Act.

“That makes the comments submitted to members of Congress in connection to the field hearing even more important,” Pérez said.

Lipan Apache Women Defense (LAW-Defense) is an Indigenous Peoples' Organization. It supports local capacity building, documentation, research, and investigations related to Indigenous peoples' rights affirmed in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ratified in 2007, and adopted by the United States on December 16, 2010.

LAW-Defense documents and advocates for the rights of the indigenous originarios, Nde', and Nakaiiye-Nde lineal clan members of Lipan Apache peoples who are the Real People: original rancheria communities along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo.

Context:Lipan Apache women of El Calaboz Rancheria took up the cultural, social, legal, political, and economic protection against armed and forced dispossession of Indigenous Peoples' lands by the U.S. D.H.S. et al.

We organized community support, empowerment and decision-making processes to protect integral and inherent Indigenous relationships to lands, sacred sites, burial grounds, and biodiversity in the face of a series of armed and forced takings of local peoples' lands, as a direct consequence of the implementation of the U.S. Secure Fence Act of 2006.

Indigenous peoples from the El Calaboz Rancheria lineal clans stood firm against the U.S. possession of traditional lands. Securing our lands, resources, livelihoods, ecologically-based economies, and way of life are at the heart of the matter for Indigenous Peoples of the Lower Rio Grande, who continue to struggle against settler and state violence stemming from colonization by Spaniards in the early 1520s, and subsequent waves of settlement, development, and privatization by Euro-American colonizers.

The United Statesand Nde' Customary PerspectivesIn U.S. law, there are significant legal fictions which assume the religious and racial superiority of Euro-American settler juridical systems above those of indigenous peoples inherent and inalienable rights to self-governance, lands and territories. The following models entail excessive aggression and armed violence, which were used to dispossess lands illegally through force and coercion against Lower Rio Grande River communities:1. Eminent Domain, 2. the Declaration of Taking, and 3. Condemnation Proceedings. Impacted Nde' and Nnee Peoples of the Texas-Mexico Border--Beyond the Doctrine of DiscoverySpecifically impacted Indigenous people, the Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, and Mexican-American land grant peoples whose ancestors' presence in the hemisphere pre-date European conquest.

The Lipan Apache Women Defense organizedlegal, social, cultural and political resistance to U.S. militarized violence, abuse of state power, and abuse of the Rule of Law

This work raises critical questions and organizes forums for serious debate, participation and collective decision-making about Indigenous inherent Aboriginal Title, and the State's sovereignty.To date, the U.S. border wall project has been unsuccessful in El Calaboz Rancheria, Lower Rio Grande Valley, South Texas because it has not achieved its goal: genocide and erasure of Indigenous peoples, presence, history, creativity, and resilient spirit.

By foregrounding community organization, documentation, research and education the Lipan Apache Women Defense has strengthened the Indigenous People's resolve to persist in Indigenous, U.S. and International law systems to restore democratic principles and rule.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR EFFORT to PROTECT INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS ALONG THE BORDER AND BORDER WALL. (FEBRUARY 2012)

Contested Rights--"Independent Indians" between the State and U.S. Development and Expansion (Map permission: Dr. Brian DeLay, Historian, in "Independent Indians and the U.S. Mexico War", The American Historical Review.